France however had already gone mad with its success. Even before Valmy wholesale murder had begun in Paris. The prisons were broken open and a thousand "aristocrats" hideously butchered without trial. The day after Valmy, the land was proclaimed a republic. King Louis was put on trial for his life, and in January, 1793, was executed.[14] Frenchmen began fighting among themselves. The reign of "terror" began as that of kings was abolished. Chiefs of each faction accused all others as traitors, and executions by the guillotine rose to fifty a day. "We must have a hundred!" cried Robespierre, the lunatic leader of the moment.
The excesses in Paris roused civil war, and through all France men slew one another in the name of liberty. In Brittany the peasants even rose in support of royalty, and refused allegiance to the republic. Never has the most hideous brutality of man been more openly displayed than in those days of vengeance. The intellectual classes of Europe everywhere shrank back, terrified at the spectre they had evoked.
The Reign of Terror ended in 1794 with the downfall and execution of its leader, Robespierre.[15] The civil war was trampled out in blood. And with Titanic energy the French Republic defended itself against its foreign foes.
All Europe had joined in a coalition against France—all the kings, that is. Their subjects still doubted, still hoped, still looked anxiously to France to see if freedom were in truth a possibility. Then from the ranks of the liberated French arose great generals, aristocrats no longer, but men of the people, fitted to lead the new-born armies of the people. Greatest of these and grimmest of them was Napoleon Bonaparte. He taught the timorous legislative authorities of Paris how to reassert their dominion over "King Mob," who had ruled them and the country for four hideous years. He checked a new uprising by a discharge of well-stationed cannon, aimed to kill.
Order being thus established at home, the French began to pour over the border in attack upon those kings who had threatened them. In many places they were still received as the apostles of liberty. Holland, Switzerland, the Rhine lands, became allies or dependents of France. Kings were helpless against them. To the spirit of Republicanism, to the impassioned courage of Frenchmen, was added the genius of Bonaparte. He conquered Italy. He plundered her and sent home priceless treasures to delight his countrymen and fill their exhausted treasury. He became the man of the hour.[16]
Far beyond France spread the influence of her example. In Eastern Europe, Poland was roused against the despoilers who had already seized a portion of her territory. She began a rebellion under Kosciuszko, who, like Lafayette, had imbibed the love of freedom in America. But Poland was crushed by the overpowering forces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Her remaining provinces were divided among the plunderers and the last fragment of her independence was extinguished.[17]
In Haiti also there was a rebellion. The negroes of the island rose against their Spanish masters and drove them into exile. Toussaint Louverture, often regarded as the greatest hero of his race, led the insurgents victoriously against both Spanish and English forces, and finally with French help established the independence of Haiti as a negro republic. He became administrator as well as warrior. After a few successful years he was treacherously seized and held prisoner by Napoleon; but the monument he had erected for himself, the "Black Republic," continued and still continues to exist.[18]
In a period so tumultuous as was this quarter-century, one could scarce expect that the world would make much progress in science. Men were too intent on sterner things. There was, however, just before the beginning of the French Revolution, one event which to a future generation may seem more important even than to us. Aërial navigation began. The first successful balloon ascension was made by the Montgolfier brothers, and the sport became for a while a Parisian fad.[19] Still more noteworthy was the employment of vaccination as a preventive against smallpox. The system was introduced in England by Jenner in 1798, and its use spread rapidly over Europe. More recently it has been employed against other diseases as well, and the resultant increase in the general health of mankind is beyond computation.[20]
FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES
Meanwhile America, the source or at least the partial source of all this republican tumult, was having difficulties of her own. The peace after Yorktown left her exhausted. The Articles of Confederation which had sufficed to hold the colonies together under the stress of their great necessity, had proven insufficient to give any real unity. Each little colony was jealous of its own power as an independent State: and for a time it seemed as if they must disband, that America must become like Europe, divided into a collection of separate ever-jarring States, devastated by constant wars.